IHEs form open-source consortium: group touts growth, stability of scalable .LRN solution

University Business, Dec, 2004

A multi-university project on open source software for collaborative education has led to the formation of the .LRN ("Dot-Learn") Consortium to promote development of an open source application suite currently used by a quarter million students and educators at institutions of higher education and research around the globe.

"The .LRN pitch is simple. The educational world is still figuring out how best to deliver e-learning, especially to external audiences," says Cesar Brea of the .LRN Board of Directors. While commercial vendors are adding zeros to their prices, .LRN is providing a suite of applications and a development framework that is free and open so IHEs can save dollars and have the flexibility for the innovations that will work, says Brea.

The project originated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where the Sloan School of Management uses it to support online activities for more than 10,000 student and faculty users.

"People use it for course management and online communities, as well as specific and unique applications such as survey tools, weblogs, and so on," says Brea.

At MIT, more than 100 courses and as many online communities use the .LRN environment for classes, testing, course management, and club communications--even alumni are now starting to use it. "This was an integral part of the vision--to allow the different stakeholders of the MIT community to employ a common set of tools to collaborate and participate," says Al Essa, CIO of the Sloan School and co-chair of the .LRN Board.

"The applications and development tools that make up .LRN have been in continua[ development for a decade, resulting in a robust collaborative education platform," notes Essa.

So why wait so long to form a consortium?

"The schools that are involved feel there is sufficient momentum to push more aggressively for further adoption of .LRN, so we can increase the viability and sustainability of the project, and increase the contributions that come back from the user community into the open-source core," says Brea.

For more information visit dotlrn.org.